I Am Irene
by writerfan2013
Summary: Joan finds a letter and realises something disturbing is going on. Irene is back in Sherlock's life, but in a way Joan never imagined. Now complete - and have they moved to a new stage in their relationship? Thanks to all my reviewers including guests whom I can't. reply to! Formatting issues in final chapter hence multiple updates, sorry.
1. Chapter 1

Joan stretched out on the bed and luxuriated for a moment as the shower blossomed steam into the room.

He appeared and threw himself down beside her, sweet smelling and damp. He ran a finger from the nape of her neck all the way down her spine. As often, she tried to read his tattoos.

"You should get one," he said, seeing her gaze. "Something thin and delicate which curls across your body spelling out its meaning in intertwining tendrils..."

He traced the path.

Joan looked up at his face and saw that he was looking past her, his fingers on her skin but his mind far, far away.

She realised with a shock that this had happened a lot lately. He was here, yet absent: he was not seeing her at all.

He was picturing someone else.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mail for you..." Her voice tailed off as she saw the handwriting on the top letter: looping, extrovert and written with a firmly pressed pen.

Sherlock's mail was generally catalogues, academic journals and enquiries from people and firms wanting his assistance or sponsorship. Personal mail was rare. Why would you write to him when he was permanently attached to his phone and could be called, emailed or texted at any time, day or night?

She knew the handwriting, had seen it on the only other examples of personal mail she had known Sherlock to receive. The woman.

She took it through with the rest of the stack, and tucked it into the middle so that he wouldn't immediately know she had seen it. He would know, of course. He always knew.

He glanced at the stack as she placed it between his breakfast bowl and the German financial newspaper he was scouring. He gave her a quick nod, the briefest acknowledgement of her as a person before they got stuck into whatever work lay ahead of them that day. The case was for a private client - a supposedly straightforward missing persons enquiry which was leading them all over. "I got the CCTV from the train station. It shows only that the person we are looking for really does not want to be found." He gave her a wry glance.

That was probably the last time he really saw her, she realised later.

After that morning, everything had changed.


	3. Chapter 3

There were still rooms in the brownstone which Joan had never entered. The afternoon of the letter, she saw one of them.

They had spent the morning on the case. The client, a wealthy Italian with a chain of shoe factories in Milan, was concerned that his son had abandoned his studies in a highly regarded business school in New York in favour of less productive activities. Apparently the boy had skipped class, skipped dorm, skipped his friends and run up large credit card bills. He seemed to return to do laundry chores every few nights or so, according to classmates, but his parents were concerned. The father had contacted Sherlock via video link.

"His mother is out of her mind with worry," he told them, showing the class photo of a pudgy, grey skinned boy with heavy glasses and an unusually severe acne problem. "She thinks he has discovered the pleasures of the flesh and left his school to spend time with..." He whispered, glancing at Joan, "...prostitutes."

The school had not been able to find him. The police had been informed but had better things to investigate than a rich eighteen year old who'd gone awol from his fancy college.

Joan and Sherlock had spent the morning interviewing college friends, of which there were very few. The boy -one Dom Malagoni - appeared arrogant and self absorbed. The personal items in his dorm room were some face creams and a cheap dictaphone. The scant classwork in evidence was a mess of notes in Italian and a shorthand, seemingly of his own design. His bin was piled with takeout boxes.

"Essentially, he's a pig," said Sherlock, turning over the bin with a plastic ruler. The room mates were quick to agree.

Sherlock flipped through the project work, supplied by the missing boy's abandoned project buddy, as Joan replaced the contents of the kid's nightstand. "I think we've spent enough time on this," Sherlock said. "I'm declaring lunch." They headed home.

After eating, Sherlock fell into one of his silences, staring at the cracked wall opposite. Joan opened her laptop to check on an email problem she'd been having - had an update fixed it? - but then Sherlock said, "Come with me," and took her by the hand.

Sherlock led Joan up to the attic and introduced a small grey door with a flourish.

"This, Watson, is my Bluebeard's chamber, my secret cabin, my

Mr Rochester's attic." He produced a tiny key from his chinos pocket and unlocked the door, flinging it wide. "This, Watson, is my trophy room."

She preceded him inside, ducking her head under roof beams. Light came from two windows set in the slant of the roof.

"Whenever I want to remind myself who I am, Watson, I retreat up here and look through some of the evidence of my earlier successes. And that done, my confidence is restored and I am myself once again."

"I've never known you come up here," Joan said, lifting the lid on a wooden packing crate. It contained reels of old film and a bundle of chafed accounts books. She let the lid drop.

"Have you ever known me lack confidence?" Sherlock asked. "Also, you do go out a lot."

She turned over a picture and found it was an empty frame. "I don't see much you could call a trophy."

"Each object has its own special meanings and memories for me, Watson. You may draw nothing from them but I assure you, each item is a vital clue to the authentic Sherlock Holmes." He spun round, arms wide. A perfect pirouette.

"Are you Ok?" she asked. "It's not like you to be so nostalgic. Sentimental even."

"Oh, Watson, Watson." He took her by the shoulders and steered her towards a heap of foreign newspapers in a corner. "Can you not see how the very room is redolent of my philosophy of assessing the evidence only, of forming no theories except those which derive from the known facts...Ah, look..."

He caught up a box tied with ribbon. "A gift from a satisfied client in London," he said, tossing it to her.

More baffled than ever, Joan caught it. The box bore the gilded stamp of a famous parfumier. She caught a waft of a heady, intensely musky scent.

"The very smell transports me to a time when I was at the height of my powers," Sherlock said. "Open it. Keep it, I don't wear ladies' perfume as a rule."

Joan stood awkwardly holding the impromptu gift as he drifted around the room poking at dusty old knick knacks. Then, as suddenly as he had announced their visit to the top of the house, he said, "I feel like a party tonight. There's never a shortage of invitations in this town - let's acquire one and go out."

"Ok," Joan said. Sherlock was already out and away, leaving the attic door open.

He called back up as he clattered down the stairs, "Find a dress, Watson, a knockout, go get em, legs up to your eyeballs dress. And wear the perfume, it suits you."


	4. Chapter 4

The taxi's stop-start motion was making Joan's headache worse. The morning light hurt her eyes and her sinuses ached. She had abandoned her morning run.

Sherlock had risen early, seemingly unaffected by their late night. Joan emerged a while later, intending to begin looking up the cream and other meds used by the missing boy, but felt very delicate. When Sherlock suggested he visit the fast food outlets from the latest discarded food trays, Joan agreed to meet him and compare notes afterwards.

A morning in smoky, noisy fast food kitchens was the last thing she felt like.

Joan washed away her headache with a large glass of water. She sat on the edge of her bed, and rubbed the space between her eyes. Not alcohol - obviously -but something had set her sinuses tingling.

Her gaze fell on the perfume Sherlock had thrust at her the previous day. She had given herself a spritz with it, but the scent was overpowering. "Not for me," she said aloud now, and dropped the bottle into the bin.

Sherlock would not care if she ditched his gift - he had not commented on either the scent or her outfit for the party, which was an evening exhibition of new pieces by a well known sculptor who enjoyed working with diamonds, rubies and other precious materials in his otherwise grotesque art.

He seemed preoccupied all evening, and Joan could not work out if he was thinking over the missing person case... Or the contents of the letter.

Irene Adler. Joan had wondered if she was dead. Apparently not.

After an hour of trying to concentrate on the case, she gave up and went out for tea.

"Chai latte," she told the young guy behind the counter of the nearby cafe. He nodded and smiled, and Joan mustered a nod. Out of the house, she was already feeling better.

She sat, and opened her notebook. The spectacled girl at the table opposite had hers too. Joan assessed her: youngish, round face with puffy cheeks, extra large glasses and heavy bangs, childish jewellery featuring cartoon characters from the seventies. An overt geek, and something else, the girl exuded foreignness. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar brand of computer, or the European style backpack at her feet, or the way she poked at her bubble tea as if she wished she'd not ordered it.

Joan caught the girl's eye and smiled. It was hard to be foreign in this town, hard to be a girl, hard to be bright and keen and brave. The girl gave a shy nod, and burrowed back behind her notebook.

Joan attempted to pick up some mail as she sipped her restorative tea, but the thing was broken again. Messages were coming in intermittently and refusing to send at all. She growled at it, and looked up to find the glasses girl standing beside her.

"Can I help? You look as if you are having difficulty." Her voice was low and uncertain and, as Joan had surmised, European. Perhaps German?

"My mail is dead. I don't know what the problem is." Joan quickly cleared the screen of her exchanges with Sherlock.

The girl bent in. "May I?"

Joan pushed the machine towards her. "Be my guest, it couldn't be any worse. I'm Joan."

"Mishka. I am on holiday from Belgium."

And that was that. Mishka expertly applied geek skills to Joan's email, and messages poured in. Joan got Mishka a more palatable cinnamon macchiato, and they chatted a little, though Mishka was painfully shy. Joan enjoyed her brief escape from the high energy, masculine world in which Sherlock existed, and then glimpsed the man himself through traffic on the other side of the street.

"I have to go. Thanks for your help."

Mishka moved to kiss Joan farewell, just as a beer bottle hit the outside of the cafe window. Everyone jumped. Joan hurried into the street with the barista, but the culprit had disappeared.

Joan turned to reassure Mishka, but she had darted off like a terrified rabbit.

Joan sighed. The tranquillity of tea and a friendly face had been shattered. She dialled Sherlock, who was nowhere to be seen. He did not pick up.

Maybe she had been mistaken.

In any case, it was now past time to visit the pharmacy where the missing boy hot his meds, because Joan had realised that they were small doses of strong steroidal creams...and would need picking up frequently. Maybe she would get lucky and find the kid there.


	5. Chapter 5

Joan hesitated in the passage for several minutes. Sherlock had been acting even more strangely than usual all day, and she wanted to talk to him, reconnect, get a sense of where he was in... whatever this was which they had, she and he.

He had dragged her halfway across town to the fast food place beloved of the missing boy, and then could not be bothered to ask the vendor - of delicious smelling Thai noodle soups - when he had last seen the kid.

Joan had made an effort to question the vendor, and got nowhere. "All we know is that he has allergic skin problems, for which he used steroid creams," she said after. "Probably caused by gluten intolerance. The take out food won't have helped."

"Yes..." Sherlock glanced at his phone. "Time to go, I think. We can pick this up again tomorrow."

"We only just got here!"

"It's not like he's in any danger," said Sherlock. "Come on, I want to swing past the exhibition centre and check out what's happening in the world of over hyped product launches."

He was edgy and distracted all the way home. Joan was half expecting him to announce another party, but he buried himself in a stack of magazines and refused to talk to her. When she looked in on him after dinner, he was watching the gadget show on tv and reading French Vogue. She left him to it.

Now it was late, he was in his bedroom, and she was outside the door. After one final wrangle with her dignity, she knocked.

No reply.

She turned the handle and went in.

Sherlock was sitting on the bed in a loose T shirt and baggy pants, glossy tech magazines strewn around him. The pc was playing a foreign radio station.

When he saw Joan, he sprang up. "Watson, what are you doing here? You can't just barge in."

As he spoke, he went to the door, took her shoulders and guided her inside. "Can't you see I'm working?"

He led her towards the bed, finger on his lips. With a kick he slammed shut the bedroom door, calling, "Whatever it is will have to wait until morning!"

He wrapped his arms round her and put his face into her hair, and without a word they sank sideways onto the bed and lay there.

The night passed in silence, stillness...even peace, and in the morning Joan got up without a word as Sherlock lay sleeping, still in his crumpled clothes, and crept away.


	6. Chapter 6

Joan stepped back as the two men donned white face masks and pulled their logo-ed caps down onto their heads. Between them they dragged a yellow canister past her up the steps and into the brownstone.

She sighed and prepared for the worst. After another fruitless morning she had had a brainwave about the case, but Sherlock had been evasive, ignoring her texts and emails.

His only contribution had been a voicemail betting her he could tell which mug she'd used that morning, and exactly which case files shec'd read before leaving the house.

Her response had been to ignore this in turn.

Now she was back, with her possible breakthrough.

Sherlock stuck his head out of the first floor window. "Watson! Don't come in! We're being fumigated."

"What? Why?" She ducked as a hose waved over her head from an upstairs window. "Is this one of your experiments run out of control?"

"What? No, it worked perfectly. But best not to, ah, breathe in, for a while." He withdrew, and appeared moments later on the steps.

"I think I can find the boy," Joan said.

"Ah, yes, been meaning to talk to you about that and whoa."

He spun round and raced back into the house. Joan was left outside, spreading her hands in frustration.

"Joan! You live here?"

It was the girl from the cafe, Mishka. "Oh hi. Yes, well, my client lives here." Although hadn't her official capacity ended now?

Mishka giggled. "Boyfriend!"

"No! He's - well, ok, I guess he kind of is." In Mishka's simplistic world view, this was easier than trying to explain the truth.

The girl actually clapped her hands. "A secret love! Romantic! Does he feel the same?"

Joan glanced about. She was not sure if she wished Sherlock would appear, and interrupt this awkward conversation - or not, because it might only encourage Mishka to further wild statements. "Uh, it's really not like that at all. We're friends, really. And he is, or was, my client."

She was just compounding the damage. What had possessed her to explain to this near-stranger that her boyfriend was her client and that it was nothing serious? Her professionalism had just taken a major dive.

"Ooh, you are a very bad girl!" scolded Mishka. "He is a, what do you call it, a sex buddy, and your client too! So naughty!"

She reached out to slap Joan on the arm. Joan involuntarily stepped back.

Inside the house, a massive crash sounded, followed by the musical clatter of breaking glass.

"I'd better make sure he's ok," Joan said, and escaped up the steps.

Mishka waved cheerily and walked on.

"That was a narrow escape, Watson," observed Sherlock, looking down at the shattered remains of the grandfather clock which usually stood on the middle landing. "Never mind, eh, work to be done."

For a second his brightness was back, and he looked as she always thought of him mid-case: sharp and quick, with a glint of warm amusement in his eyes.

Then he stilled himself and said carelessly, "Come with me, Watson, I have an errand to run, a small gift for a friend."

He stepped over the cracked clock face, and sauntered out.


	7. Chapter 7

There was no-one waiting by the college gates.

Gone, again. Joan took several deep breaths. Sherlock was simply absent, either mentally - always scouring the bewildering range of news and magazines he had surrounded himself with - or physically, as now, when she had specifically asked him to meet her at the dorm room of the missing boy so that she could explain the breakthrough.

She had started well, walking along the street with him at her side, and then he spun away saying he would just be a minute. She had waited as he sprinted back in the direction of the house.

He had not come back.

She was growing tired of the feeling that she was on some awful blind date, except her date kept excusing himself and crawling out of the bathroom window.

She stood by the subway entrance and sent him a furious email, and then another one.

Then she calmed herself, dialled his number, and when - of course - he did not pick up, left him a steady-voiced message explaining where she would be and asking him to meet her there.

And here she was, being stood up all over again.

If a girlfriend did this to her she would let it be known that this was poor behaviour. If a boyfriend did it, that would be game over unless a very impressive rabbit could be pulled from a very glamorous hat.

But Sherlock was neither.

Suddenly she was worried about him. He had been her client. Was he on the verge of relapse? This business with the letter from Irene... Was it sending him back over the precipice?

Why was he ignoring the case?

She admitted it to herself, waiting with her phone in her hand outside the college where they had searched the missing boy's bin: Sherlock failing to treat her like a woman, a friend, a lover, was a lot less surprising than his abandoning the case.

That could mean only one thing.

She stuck her phone into her coat pocket and began to run.


	8. Chapter 8

Sherlock was stretched out on the couch, head thrown back, eyes directed blankly up at the ceiling. One hand hung down over the edge of the couch, fingers curled loosely, resting on the polished floor.

"Sherlock!" Joan was at his side, peering into his face. He was conscious but unresponsive. "Sherlock, can you hear me?"

She scrabbled in her bag for a drugs test, before remembering that he was clean and she no longer carried them around with her.

"Wait here!" she cried unnecessarily, and raced for the door to the passage.

"Watson! Don't go in there!"

Sherlock sat bolt upright and yelled at her. "Stop!" She came back, grabbed his wrist to check his heart rate. "Were you just... Faking?" She was so wound up she could hardly speak. Anger and fear welled up within her. "I thought you'd relapsed!" She realised that her eyes were watering, and brushed tears furiously away.

"I was thinking, Watson, going over every detail of the problem." He stood up, shaking out his arms.

"You are going to do a drugs test anyway," she told him, voice shaking. She moved towards the door again and he gripped her arm.

"No! Stay out of there!"

"Why?"

"Because it's ...contaminated. I'll take a test if you really want, but stay out of that room."

She stared at him. Paranoia. Whatever was going on, it was seriously affecting his mind. "I'm worried about you. Please tell me what's going on. And listen, don't worry about the case. I think I can-"

Sherlock waved a hand, interrupting: "The case? The case is solved. No, I'm concerned with a far more serious problem."

Joan closed her eyes for a second. Opened them again. "Ok. What problem?"

His gaze drifted away ans she saw that vague look steal back over his face. "It's...awkward. It's nothing. It's a private thing."

He turned away.

"Three lies in three seconds," she burst out.

He did not even bother to turn round. "I don't lie to you, Watson. I've never lied to you."

"Then talk to me!" The tears were back, and she was angry with herself as well as him.

How could she be losing it so badly?

"We need to work this out, Sherlock," she said. "We need to get to the hub of it."

He whirled around. "The hub! Of course, how could I have missed that!"

He ran into the other room and began throwing magazines and journals around. "There!" He looked at his phone. "Tonight. Excellent. We may even be in time to-"

He stoppped abruptly and glanced around with a haunted expression. "We need to get out, Watson. Let's take a little drive, shall we? We can pick up clothes for tonight from the dry cleaners, and I can clear up that matter with the missing boy. Yes, let's do that."

"What?!"

But he was already in the hallway, pulling on his coat and scarf. He was winding the scarf around his neck when he suddenly stopped. He tore it off and cast it away, grabbing the lumberjack shirt and bodywarmer from further into the bundle of hanging coats, instead.

He glanced at Joan, and then all around in the hallway. "Violated," he said, lip curling. "Come on, things to do!"

He jogged down the steps, leaving Joan to trail behind, asking herself how much more she was prepared to tolerate...even for him.


	9. Chapter 9

In the taxi, Sherlock relaxed."Fret not, Watson. All will become clear."

They arrived at a small, crowded street not far from the missing boy's college."Here again," said Joan. "You never let me finish telling you about the pharmacy."

"The creams were for his chronic allergic skin reaction, yes, on by his lifelong-"

"Gluten intolerance," finished Joan.

Sherlock strode along the street, hands in his jeans pockets, ignoring people coming in and out of the many small shops and restaurants. "Well done. So why was he gorging on exactly the kind of food which he knew would make him sick?"

"Because it wouldn't," said Joan. "The restaurants he got takeout from were gluten free specialty places."

Sherlock glanced up at the sign above a brightly lit, busy cafe. "This one, I think." Joan recognised the logo from one of the takeout boxes: a Nepalese/Indian fusion restaurant. Sherlock held open the door for Joan, and they entered the noisy, steamy room.

"We're here to see Dom," Sherlock explained to the waiter who approached.

"So the kid was just spending time in his favourite gluten free places? Seems a bit extreme. And what makes you think this one is where he'll be?" Joan looked around. It was a pretty typical city scene: a crowd enjoying chat and chow, amid aromas of Himalayan spices.

"Because this place was started by a young entrepreneur from a small business college, not too far from here." Sherlock raised his eyebrows at Joan. "I'm guessing our missing boy met him at a lecture and wanted to know more."

Joan frowned.

Just then a young guy with dark hair and glasses, in chef's whites, approached. "Can I help you?"

Joan looked at him and realised with a shock that this was the missing boy. There was no sign of podginess and his skin was bright and clear.

"I think so." Sherlock removed a pen drive from his pocket and handed it over."Your business plan...I took theiberty of snappinga few pages with my phone while your project buddy was fetching me a coffee."

The young man broke into a grin. "Thank you! I looked everywhere but he must have kept it with him all the time."

"A fact which did not escape me," agreed Sherlock. "Oh, he was ready enough to show me the clever document when we visited, but I couldn't help noticing that he squirrelled it away as soon as I handed it back. He seemed to bear a grudge - he must think your idea is marvellous. And given that you were hardly likely to return to your hated dorm room just for the benefit of using the washing machine, when there are perfectly good laundrettes nearby, it seemed plausible that you came back to look for something. Your parents are very worried about you, by the way."

Dom looked sad. "They will not approve of my plan. But when they see it in action, in Milan..."

"Wait a minute," said Joan. "You bunked off school to follow your business plan and do...what? Run a gluten free restaurant?" She looked around.

"Well. Milan has plenty of places a coeliac can eat. But they are all pasta restaurants...Italian food." Dom spread his hands.

"There is nothing for the gluten intolerant person who craves, for instance, Indonesian food," said Sherlock, plucking a menu from the counter. "And no fusion food."

"Exactly. My place will be the first, and the best. And I will have learned from people who have cooked the most exciting food combinations, in the most exciting city in the world!"

Joan could not help smiling at his enthusiasm. "You should call your parents," she told him.

"I will. I am quitting college and working full time here, learning to cook these fusion foods. I just need somewhere to live. All my stuff is on the dorm room, and here I sleep in a cupboard upstairs."

Sherlock gave the boy his card. "Give me a call in a couple of days," he said. "I know a little flat that's just about to come free."

As Joan and Sherlock walked away, the glow of a mystery solved receded, and Sherlock shrank back into himself again. The journey back home, with cleaned clothes in clear plastic draped over their arms, was in near silence.

Not an auspicious start for an evening out.


	10. Chapter 10

The ballroom was marble floored and velvet curtained, the arched windows showing a breathtaking vista of the city at night, and the guests were a dazzling selection of New York's boldest and brashest.

Joan was in hell.

"He's a new man," commented Marlian, wife of somebody the third. "My sweet girl in red satin, you have transformed him!"

"He rarely used to bother with our little soirees," agreed Debony, who was something big in mobile technology. "But he's so exciting and so brilliant, we've been utterly bereft."

"Your ravishing beauty must have done the trick," Marlian said, winding a lock of Joan's hair around her finger. "It's hard to imagine you were ever a doctor!"

"Surgeon," corrected Joan, and caught herself. It did not matter! Who were these awful people? She had loathed this kind of party all her life -been subjected to a fair few in the name of networking or fundraisers- and yet here she was, dressed up way beyond the nines, sipping nasty white wine and smiling as these repellent women fondled her like a pet, a good little pet who has retrieved their favourite stick.

Where the hell was Sherlock?

At that moment he appeared at her side, hair combed, clean shaven, dressed sumptuously in a midnight blue velvet evening jacket and silk-seamed trousers. His shoes gleamed. He wore a bright silver signet ring on his left middle finger, encrusted with the Holmes crest. My father's, he had said carelessly when she noticed it.

Sherlock approached, and Marlian and Debony broke into sighs and moans of appreciation.

"Oh look at the two of you together!" exclaimed Marlian as Sherlock bent to kiss the back of Joan's neck. "My angel, you have perfectly cured him of that horrid broken heart!"

Joan shivered at the touch of his lips on her skin. The gesture was an exact split of tenderness and possessiveness,and she hated herself for wanting to forgive his manipulative behavior.

Debony stroked Sherlock's arm. He merely smiled and asked if they were having fun before leading Joan away with a hand under her elbow.

"Thanks," she said once they were out of earshot in the crowd. "They were driving me insane."

"Not insane, Joan, that would be an exaggeration as ridiculous and lazy as their own. I agree however that their company is tedious."

"What is this event, anyway?" There had been food and music, but no speeches and no drumroll for a special guest or big announcement.

"Tech launch," Sherlock told her. "Except we'll never see the tech or hear anything about it. Too hush hush, but still the manufacturers, or as I should call them at this stage, the patent holders, want everyone to know about their clever idea. And give them money to launch production, preferably."

"So they don't have a product yet."

"They have a prototype. Which naturally we will not be allowed to see."

"So what does it do - what's it for?" Joan followed him through the crowd towards the windows.

"Not completely sure. My research suggests it's a design for a kind of power supply which can give immensely long usage from the briefest of charges. The inventors are claiming medical, military and consumer applications."

Sherlock led her to a small stand. It supported a glass case - with black velvet curtains drawn all around and over it, on the inside of the glass. "This is it. See how they tease us with the suggestion of revelation, while simultaneously removing the possibility."

Joan looked at the box. "The prototype is in there?"

Sherlock leaned back on the case with his elbows and gazed around the room. "Probably not. If there was anything valuable in it, a burly man in a self important cap would burst from the crowd and shout-"

"Move away from the prototype, sir!"

A muscular, tanned young man in a security uniform strode towards Sherlock. "Move away now, sir, that's private property."

"Sorry, just taking the weight off. " Sherlock grinned and led Joan away. "So, they've got the brass neck - or stupidity - to put their precious idea in a box at the launch event."

He caught Joan's so-what look. "Instead of, for example, in a high security vault where it can't be compromised."

Joan looked around at the crowd. "You think someone here would steal it?"

Sherlock's expression turned grim. "I think someone here has already stolen it. The box now contains nothing of value."

Joan glanced around. "I thought this event was invitation only."

"And yet with the aid of a high end laser printer and an air of supreme confidence, here we are." Sherlock rummaged in his pocket and brought out a device like a phone. He glanced at it, then replaced it and yawned. "I never knew how these events dragged when you're not knocking back the Bollinger."

He looked around and the sleepy, languid look Joan had seen of late, crept over his face. His tone changed and he spoke offhandedly, not bothering to make eye contact with het. His gaze wandered past her. "We have not quite done our duty yet. Another half an hour should finish the job. Everyone is desperate to meet you."

"You mean, you," said Joan. "I am just the sideshow - you're the one they've been waiting for." She had meant it as a statement and was surprised at how snide and self-pitying it came out. "I mean, they haven't seen you for a long time."

"I rarely come out to feed the fishes," Sherlock said unpleasantly.

He was scanning the room. His eyes betrayed the air of boredom he assumed: they were bright and never still. His gaze flicked from person to person in the massive ballroom. He was looking for someone.

Then Joan saw the flash of acquisition in his eyes. He said abruptly, "I think we've covered it actually. Let's leave."

Something in her snapped. All this time, going along with it, allowing him to lead her on a hunt for whatever it was, being fed snippets of information when it suited him, being ignored at other times... No, she was not ready to just go or stay at his whim. She lifted her chin. "I'll just visit the -"

"No, we're leaving now, you can hang on, can't you?" He made to tug her by the arm.

She glared at him in outrage and disbelief. "I will be back in a minute," she told him icily and turned away to find the bathroom.

"Passionate," whispered a woman behind her with a low chuckle. "That's how he likes it..."

Joan whirled round and saw a dark haired woman in a twilight blue gown, her bare back to Joan, updo just on the sensuous side of tousled, walking towards Sherlock with her empty wine glass dangling from her fingers, trailing its last drops onto the floor.

Joan flushed pink with anger. These people! She knew it was a kind of snobbery in itself to despise the privileged, but really this fawning over Sherlock was sickly and disturbing. And yet he seemed to revel in it with her at his side. This was the third such affair since...the letter.

She found the bathroom and pushed through a crowd of women spritzing themselves with parfums or dabbing on extra lip gloss, to reach the privacy of the stalls.

The truly awful thing about these dates with Sherlock, she reflected, was that she hated them ...and he enjoyed it.

When he stepped into a ballroom, he forgot who he was, who she was, and became this socialite, this performer of petty deductions for the amusement of the adoring throng.

He was clean - that was good. He was out enjoying a social life with people he had known since childhood. That was good.

So why was she so unhappy?

She would leave, with him now, and when they got home she would -

What?

Break up with him?

She let out a bitter laugh and turned it into a cough.

You can't end something which has never begun. Something conducted without discussion or declaration. Any tenderness, any seeming signs of attachment, were merely method, technique, process.

She had known this. Expected this. Professionally, her actions were unforgivable. Personally they were... very questionable.

She cursed herself for her own stupidity. She had known his manipulativeness, known his weaknesses as an addict, known enough of his history to be very wary of it, known her own role in his life perfectly clearly. So why had she gone ahead and become involved with him? Of all people - she could have picked anyone to work through her own needs and desires with, but she picked him.

It was foolishness and it was wilfulness and it was ego. Surgeons have egos as big as moons and she was no different. She would be immune, she would remain detached, yada yada yada.

The shame was worse than the hurt at being used.

Joan carefully wiped her eyes and smoothed down her dress. No more tears of anger or regret.

No more being kept in the dark.

No more expecting, hoping to be go en something. What she wanted, she would take.

And so she emerged, face frozen in a sly smile, to find Sherlock hovering outside the ladies' room. Before he could speak she commanded. "Take me home, it's late and I'm tired."

He looked at her carefully and offered her his arm without a word.

In the taxi, she instructed, "We'll sleep in my room tonight. It's much more comfortable." Then she turned her face to the window and said nothing more.

She could feel him looking at her, thinking, probably cursing her for introducing emotion when he wanted to be working. But in fact it was the opposite. She was removing emotion, neatly, with a clean cut.

The old Joan was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

Joan stood downstairs sipping green tea and scowling -at her own weakness, at Sherlock for participating, at Irene Adler for interfering in her life with Sherlock which, imperfect as it may have been, had suited Joan quite well.

Irene. Joan put down the tea.

Irene would not let a thing like privacy or personal space get in the way of what she wanted.

Irene simply took. She simply did.

Joan thought of the woman in the blue dress the previous night, carelessly letting her wine spill out of the glass. She didn't care about the mess, or what people thought.

Joan went quickly to the pile of mail and shuffled through it. The handwritten letter was still there, ripped open. Glancing about the silent kitchen, she pulled the letter from its envelope.

The bold handwriting occupied just a couple of lines in the centre of the page. Light blue airmail paper.

"I'm in town to get a look at this hot new thing. No doubt our paths will cross in the process. Irene."

Joan lay down the letter. All the breath had gone out of her.

Nothing. There was nothing in the letter to suggest that Irene and Sherlock were becoming involved again. Nothing, really, in the letter at all.

For this, she had broken Sherlock's trust. For this she had been cold to him, treated him off handedly...for this she had behaved in a way which shamed her.

She recalled all her obsessive and, yes, jealous thoughts since Sherlock received the letter. She thought of her imperious behaviour the previous night. She knew someone else who behaved like that, selfish, without a thought for the feelings of others. She knew, suddenly, why Sherlock kept gazing away as if seeing someone other than her.

"Oh my God. I am Irene."

She sank onto a chair and stared at nothing as the green tea grew cold.


	12. Chapter 12

When Sherlock entered the kitchen Joan was composed and calm.

He made himself a cup of tea, glancing across at her from time to time. He was dressed today in a saggy grey T shirt, dark jeans and brown leather boots. He looked as if he could equally drive a snow plough or mend a delicate watch. Or catch a criminal.

He sat at the table opposite her and waited for her to speak.

Joan pushed the letter across the table to him. "I read your personal letter. I'm sorry. I know it was wrong."

Sherlock looked at the letter, then at Joan, then took a gulp of tea. He shoved the letter aside. "Yes. Well. How would you like to make some rather over confident people very disappointed? And then maybe we can pop back and catch someone who's been very, very bad."

He smiled swiftly, then got up. "Well? Are you coming?"

xxxx

The ballroom looked rather drabber by day. A janitor was polishing the floor with a large, humming machine.

Sherlock asked to see John Fargo, the owner of the startup who threw the previous day's party.

A man appeared, dressed in open collar shirt, chinos and brown loafers, no socks. "What can I do for you? " he asked, pleasantly enough. "I'm extremely busy and I gave a ton of press interviews last night."

"Mr Fargo. Sherlock Holmes, consultant with the NYPD. I believe you have been robbed."

Fargo laughed. "Robbed? Robbed how?"

"I believe your prototype has been stolen, and even now is being readied for production by a rival firm, most likely in Germany or Belgium."

Fargo shook his head. "You're mistaken. The prototype is right here."

He led them into a small office where the glass case Joan and Sherlock saw the previous night, had been wheeled. "And if you really don't believe me, I can show you," he added as he picked up the office phone. "Brad? Get up here."

They waited until a tough looking young man appeared. Joan recognised the muscular security guard from the party.

"And do I take it that Brad here possesses the only key?" Sherlock asked.

"That's right. It's on my person at all times. I'd like to see someone try to take it off me!" Brad bristled.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Mmn, yes, well, perhaps you would like to check the contents of the case? -Oh please don't be concerned. Ms Watson and I will look away. I wouldn't want to see anything confidential."

The case was unlocked with a key from a chain around Brad's thick neck.

"It's still here," announced Fargo."You're wrong, Mr Holmes."

Sherlock drew from his pocket the device Joan had seen before: a black plastic thing the size of an old phone. "The item may still be in place, but it has been photographed and its designs are even now in the hands of your rivals. I can prove that someone opened this case between yesterday morning and now, handled the prototype, and was able to photograph it in detail before replacing it. I can even prove who that person was, if you're interested."

Fargo shook his head. "This is just your say so. What even makes you think the designs have been stolen?"

Sherlock handed Fargo his phone. "Primarily this. A sudden press leak from your chief rivals in Germany this morning, indicating a miraculous breakthrough in their product design. They're now making some claims as spectacular as your own, about what the power hub will be able to do."

Fargo and Brad read the screen. Their faces fell. Sherlock raised his eyebrows, then pocketed his phone again. He still had the strange black device.

Fargo grabbed Brad. "You said you never let the key off your body!"

"I haven't, I swear! I wear it in the shower, I even wear it in bed!"

Sherlock winced. "And there, I'm afraid, lies the opportunity for it to be stolen. Brad, you look like a sexually active kind of chap. Plenty of girlfriends, am I right? Anyone special at the moment? Anyone...German?"

"She's a Californian blonde and she has never touched the key."

"Amazing what those perruquiers can do these days. And you don't need to touch something to photograph it."

"A picture of a key? Big deal." Fargo was still unconvinced.

"A sufficiently high resolution picture can be translated into a design which can be printed out... With a 3D printer."

Fargo's eyes widened. "The prototype..."

"Is gone, in essence, yes." Sherlock pointed the black device at Brad. "But even if your design has been stolen, at least we can catch the thief. I suspected the perpetrator, and took the liberty of coating her with a fully traceable, unique substance based on a perfluourocarbon tracer. This substance can be detected using a form of UV, or as you call it, black light."

He switched on the device. Brad's face, neck, and shirt collar lit up bright purple.

Sherlock curled his lip. "Well, she's been all over you. Now let's check the case. If I may..."

Smears and fingerprints lit up around the lock of the case.

After a nod from Fargo, Sherlock shone the black light at the prototype. It too, showed handling marks in a vivid violet.

Sherlock turned to Brad. "Shall we pay a visit to your all-American paramour? I have arranged for the police to meet us there."


	13. Chapter 13

As they walked up the many stairs of an old apartment block not far from Sherlock's house, Joan asked him, "How did you know who the thief was and what she was going to do?" She thought she knew the answer.

Sherlock gave her a peculiar look. "She wrote and told me."

Joan nodded.

At the next landing, she asked, "And how did you know where she lived?"

Sherlock bounded ahead. "Followed her home one day. Come on!"

Captain Gregson was waiting on the top floor. He gave Joan a smile, and Sherlock a frown. "She's not in."

"No problem," said Sherlock. "I have a key."

"3D printed?" said Joan.

"Borrowed and copied at the key cutter's."

He opened the door. Gregson hovered outside. "I'm not happy with this...'

"Then how about with this?" Sherlock, now wearing latex gloves, picked up a sheet of paper by its corner. "A large format photograph of something you should find rather familiar, Brad."

Joan saw a photo of the power hub prototype. It was a sharp closeup, every detail clear.

"What about this marker chemical?" asked Gregson. "And when we're done here, you and I need to have a little talk about how you got hold of that stuff." He glared at Sherlock.

"I'm a legitimate customer of a well known UK business," said Sherlock. "Each batch is unique, allowing identification of, for example, stolen lead from church roofs, jewellery, and so on. It's also used in bank spray systems to mark criminals as they carry out a heist."

"So how did you mark ... This person?" Joan asked, watching with a sinking feeling as Sherlock approached the nightstand in the tiny apartment bedroom.

"She coated herself voluntarily...with this." Sherlock held up a bottle of perfume, a well known brand.

Gregson looked weary. "Dare I ask how that came to contain tracer chemicals?"

Sherlock was now hunting around the den. "I broke in and added it to the perfume bottle. I knew it would work...I tested it previously."

"On me!" spluttered Joan. She remembered the gift from the attic, and the headache it had given her.

"It allowed me to identify which mug you used for coffee, even after you washed it up." Sherlock pointed a knowing finger at her.

"That gave me migraine!"

Sherlock shrugged. "It's harmless. Your headache was most likely a reaction to the fragrance - I noticed that you don't usually wear perfume."

Joan shook her head in exasperation.

"Aha! One 3D printer." Sherlock opened a cubby hole and revealed a complex looking machine with a glass plate and a nozzle.

"You think this has been used to reproduce the prototype?" Gregson asked.

"No, that would require an industrial machine and take far too long. This is a consumer model, available at a number of outlets for a few thousand dollars." Sherlock was scrolling through the

printer's menu. "But this is capable of printing... a security key."

They all leaned in and saw a CAD style outline picture of a key.

Joan was nearest the front door. So it was she who heard footsteps first. "She's coming!"

Everyone piled put of the apartment and Sherlock closed the door quietly. He looked at Joan.

Her heart was pounding. Was she really going to meet, at last, the famous Irene Adler?

She looked at Sherlock and knew he could see her anticipation. "Watson-"

The footsteps had reached the top, and so had their owner.

Joan's mouth dropped open.

"Joan! What a lovely surprise!"

It was Mishka.


	14. Chapter 14

Joan took a step towards her.

Sherlock cried out, "Watson no! She's dangerous-"

Joan thought of Mishka being twice prevented from hugging her - once by a beer bottle clashing into a cafe window, once by a grandfather clock splintering after a two storey drop - and she realised what Sherlock had done.

Nevertheless, she moved towards Mishka.

"Sherlock, I think you wanted this." Joan reached out and ripped off one of Mishka's necklaces. She stepped back quickly as the cops closed in, and held it up: a simple chain, on the end of which was a white plastic key. An unnatural looking key in a sickly white colour. A printed key.

She gave it to Gregson, who bagged it. Then she turned for another look at Mishka.

"That's not my girlfriend!" said Brad.

Mishka, who had been standing very still between two cops, gave Brad a scornful glance. She lifted a hand to her mouth, and pulled out two cheek pads. Then she tugged at the heavy back bangs hanging in her eyes. The wig came away in her hand, as did the large glasses.

"How about now?" suggested Sherlock. "Try picturing the look with a lot of bronzer and a gold wig."

A woman older than Mishka, with fine high cheekbones and an elfin black crop, stood proudly looking at Joan, and past her, at Sherlock. The geek clothes and jewellery hung on her like the props they were, and Joan saw the poise they had hidden.

Irene spoke. "Hello, Sherlock." Her voice was low and calm, with the merest trace of a European accent.

Sherlock looked at her with no expression, then spoke to Gregson. "I suggest you question this woman regarding the theft of Mr Fargo's prototype. Also, when she is in custody, please bear in mind this is a woman who can print keys."

"And if it doesn't stick?" asked Gregson. "Something tells me Ms Adler has an alibi. Her past record shows a lot of arrests and almost no convictions."

"I paid my dues to society, officer, "said Irene. "But if you wish to accuse me of some new crime, based on my possession of a decorative key, then please, be quick. I have a flight to catch."

"If you can't keep her on charges of industrial espionage," said Sherlock, "then perhaps you can charge her with breaking into my house? I can prove she was there."

He shone the black light device at Irene, and her face and hands lit up in an eerie violet colour.

Joan gasped. This woman, in the house - their home! In Sherlock's bedroom - in her bedroom?

"I like to check up on you from time to time," Irene said to Sherlock. "See what kind of company you're keeping." She turned to Joan. "I'd heard that he paid you...like the others...But you send such marvellous emails to each other. I knew you were something...different, and I confess I am only a little disappointed." She smirked, taking in Joan's bare face, cosy clothes and big boots.

For a woman dressed as a nerd, Irene gave off an incredible air of physical superiority, as if she wore a beautiful gown which only the privileged could see.

Joan said, "I don't exist to please or disappoint you." She paused. "Or anyone."

"Let's move this along," said Gregson. "Mr Fargo, if you can also accompany us to the precinct..."

"I trust you can handle it from here," Sherlock said to Gregson, who gave an upwards nod.

Sherlock glanced at Fargo and Brad, who seemed shocked. Brad was staring wide eyed at Irene.

Sherlock looked at her too, and his face was quite still.

Then he gestured towards the stairs. "Watson."

She nodded, and they made for the street.

xxxx

"How did you know she would steal the hub?" Joan asked. They were on the street, in gritty air, walking back to the brownstone. Joan had still not been able to say the name, Irene, out loud to him. She honestly did not know how he would react.

Sherlock was walking hunched, hands in pockets. "I didn't." He stole a glance at Joan. "If I'd realised sooner, I would have prevented it. But I wasted a lot of time because of the letter."

He frowned, scuffled his feet. "When I first got it I thought she meant you. That she was trying to...get to..you."

Joan thought of the letter. 'I'm in town to get hold of this hot new thing...' In spite of herself she almost laughed. "I suppose that's some sort of compliment."

"I thought she would break in to the house, maybe bug the place to try and find out our relationship. Evidently her earlier research about why you were living with me had left her confused. I never realised she had hacked your email."

"I had trouble for a few days even before I met Mishka," Joan recalled.

"I set up the marker primarily so that I would know if she had been in the house." Sherlock grimaced. "Which she has, incidentally. And quite extensively. That's why I had to have the place cleaned after I tested the perfume on you. Even though the second batch contained a different marker, I didn't want any confusion with your traces in the house."

Joan digested this. They walked a few yards in silence, then she said, "Does it strike you as creepy and chauvinistic to mark the women in your life so that you can tell exactly where they've been?"

Sherlock watched the pavement. "Not in these circumstances, no."

"Right." Joan folded her arms. She stopped square in front of him. "What about giving someone the common courtesy of letting them know a stranger has been in their home? What - where? In the den? The bathroom? In... my room?"

Sherlock looked all around and then met her gaze. "Everywhere. She was all over the house."

"Oh!"

Joan whirled round and stomped off.

Sherlock caught up with her.

She walked, face set, not looking at him. He had not shared any of this with her, including the danger she might have been in. He had been cold...

She thought of the night he had held her, in his bed, without a word. Silent in case that woman was listening.

"Watson. The cleaners will be back later. I've already organized a hotel for us," he waved his phone at her, "and, and," peering at her, "and she knows nothing more about you now than she did three weeks ago. This -" he flicked his fingers between himself and her -"this, is unknowable to someone like that. Incomprehensible. She simply does not have the capacity."

Joan narrowed her eyes.

She carried on walking, and after a moment, so did he.

xxxx

Late evening. Joan had given her notebook to Sherlock with instructions to "Make it work properly with nobody snooping in my personal stuff. Including you." She had spent the rest of the day alone, ignoring Sherlock's updates on progress with the Fargo case and the state of the brownstone.

Now they were standing in the thick-carpeted corridor of the hotel, outside the rooms Sherlock had reserved for them.

"Watson, you know I don't do romance, involvement, drama."

"I'm perfectly aware of this."

"I don't believe in love."

"I know. It's a chemical reaction manufactured in the brain to engender genetically useful procreation. I know." She had had this conversation with him a dozen times in her head. Now, here, there was no need to spell it out. There never had been.

Sherlock grimaced, reached warily for her shoulder.

"But I'm not incapable of forming attachments, Joan. I do become attached." He was gazing at her with that peculiar intensity which defined him: both knowing and unworldly at once.

"I know what we have," Joan told him. "Whatever it is. I'm fine with it. But I won't be experimented on, and I will not be kept in the dark when either of us could be in danger.

She felt compelled to add, "I'm not proud of the way I've been acting lately. For a moment I thought my life would be better if I behaved a little more...carelessly. As if I didn't believe in love either."

"You're not a careless person," he said.

She shook her head.

"She was nothing like you,' he said. He held her shoulders, leaned in and kissed her gently, looking into her eyes.

Technique, Joan thought. Sherlock knows that this is how men make it up to women. It's just technique. And how could anybody know the difference?

But there was something in his face as he leaned back to see her reaction, something troubled. Was it fear?

She was more disturbed by the idea of his attachment to her, than she could process just then.

Joan kissed his jawline, then slipped away to her room alone.

Attachment would have to wait.

The End


End file.
